


what's in a name

by DeCarabas



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Jaws of Hakkon DLC, M/M, Treat, past Grandin/Jace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/pseuds/DeCarabas
Summary: A third option.For the prompt: "In the game, I hated that my only options for dealing with Grandin were kill him or let him go. I really wanted to be able to send him to the Avvar, since they have such an interesting view on spirits. And then there's Finn, dealing with his own issues as it relates to Avvar culture and expectations..."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragonflies_and_Katydids](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/gifts).



“Release Grandin, spirit.”

“Release? The spirit remains because I _want_ it to.” He’s never felt more clear-headed. Every distraction, every doubt has been burned away. “I _will_ protect our people. I want to fight, Inquisitor.”

“…He’s like that Avvar apprentice we just recruited, isn’t he?” the Inquisitor says to one of his companions. The Seeker. She looks pained. “Let’s see what the Avvar have to say about all this.”

He’s surrounded by disapproving looks, and one of the Inquisitor’s companions murmurs as if to himself, “Hakkonites hurt people. It wants to kill them. It doesn’t know how to stop,” and Grandin doesn’t _want_ to stop. And he hears the word _abomination_ , and he supposes that’s what he is now.

* * *

“No, you’re not,” the augur pronounces.

“…I’m pretty sure I am, actually.” It comes out sounding more like a question than he’d meant it to. But it also comes out in two voices at once.

His—their?—opinion counts for very little as far as the augur is concerned.

Grandin knows the augur. Or he thinks he does. Vague impressions of memories that aren’t really his own. A part of him is certain he’s heard that voice before, chanting, praying. Praying to him, which is a deeply disquieting feeling if he lets himself stop to think about it. But the way the augur’s looking at him now is nothing like reverence and feels rather a lot like sitting in Senior Enchanter Ludmila’s office as an apprentice, scuffing his feet on her floor and wishing he were anywhere else.

He sits shirtless on the edge of the stones around the fire pit, faintly sour smoke tickling his nose, while the augur examines the wound he’d taken just before the spirit came to him, the hasty job he’d made of it stretching below his ribs. Ugly work. He’s seen abominations before, when his Circle fell; they looked much like that. Whorled and ridged and alien.

And he’s never had a particular gift for healing, and the spirit has only the vaguest idea of how bodies are meant to fit together, and the augur pokes and prods and finally sits back on his heels and declares that he’s not willing to try separating Grandin from the spirit, not yet, not even if Grandin were willing to go along with it, which he is decidedly not. Too much of a chance the spirit is what’s holding him together, the augur says.

He feels perfectly fine. Better than fine. Better than he’s felt in his life. But he remembers looking down at himself and seeing something very different, fire and light, and he spreads his fingers over that patch of skin, strange but solid.

The Inquisitor makes his decision. And this assignment sounds an awful lot like being an apprentice again, a distraction from what he should be doing, how he could be serving. But the augur doesn’t want to stop the spirit from fulfilling the purpose that brought it to him, won’t try to keep him from the river and the Hakkonites, just as long as he comes back to the hold each night. It’s enough.

“Don’t make me come looking for you again,” says the Inquisitor.

“No, Inquisitor. Thank you, Inquisitor,” he says, heartfelt, and the Inquisitor grimaces.

“Don’t thank me. I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to Harding.”

* * *

The hold is familiar like the augur is familiar, like remembering a dream. The certainty that a part of him has been here before, that he’s watched these warriors at their training, heard the clash of blades, seen the way the morning mist rises off the water far below.

In the Circle, they’d speculated about what it might be like. Possession. The death sentence hanging over their heads, the reason they had to be locked up. They weren’t supposed to dwell on it, weren’t supposed to risk a stray thought sounding too much like an invitation, but they did anyway. He thought he’d be gone, as good as dead, or trapped deep within his own mind or… he doesn’t know. Something. Not this.

When he says as much, the augur says to him, “Some of the gods are hungry for a taste of what it’s like to be us. Some of them are starving. But it’s easier if we’re still around to show them how, see?”

He doesn’t see, not really. Except there’s a part of him that does.

That same part of him watches the warriors at their early morning training and feels as if he should be able to do something, as if he’s meant to. Bless them. Grant strength to their arm. Do what they’ve always called on him to do.

He _reaches_ , and is confused when nothing happens.

Then he’s confused about what exactly he just tried to do.

And that same part of him watches the wounded hunter sitting to one side of the training grounds, the man with the staff and the limp and so much anger in him, none of it showing on his face but _there_ , audible, calling out to Grandin like a bell, making him want to—he doesn’t know what.

The hunter introduces himself as Finn. Caldansen. Finn, pause, Caldansen, stumbling over the second name. And when Grandin offers his own name, Finn just nods. “I know.”

The elven lowlander abomination in Inquisition uniform probably does rather stick out.

Finn holds a coin-shaped piece of wood in his hand and scrapes at it with a knife, and his eyes are a little wide and a little glassy and he smells of lotus potions, but his grip on the knife is sure. And when Grandin asks, Finn tosses him the carving so he can get a better look. The outline of an owl’s features, feathers taking shape around the edges, a loop for a cord to be threaded through. He’s seen those same features painted on some of the walls of the basin.

“For the Lady. I’m not exactly on Her good side at the moment.” He shrugs. “Helps pass the time. Keeps me busy, anyway.”

Hot bright spike of Finn’s anger calling to something in him, so loud he could hum along, and Finn’s expression doesn’t change at all.

And Grandin spent last night sitting in a cot in the augur’s hut, nothing more for him to do until morning, nothing to track down and no one to fight and nothing at all to stop his thoughts from spiraling back to how he’d failed Jace. He can sympathize with the need for a distraction.

He hands the little owl pendant back, the texture of carved feathers under his thumb. “Fine work.”

“Think so? It’s yours, then. Maybe a gift to the god-touched will help turn my luck around.”

“I—” He hesitates. A wooden, highly flammable gift. “Thank you.” He thinks, adds, “I’ve got a book you’re welcome to.” And Finn looks up at him in surprise. Though his copy of _The Dane Saga_ is still at camp, along with his spare shirt and the rest of his few belongings, left behind when he abandoned his post. He needs to go back for it anyway. “To help pass the time.”

Finn laughs, shakes his head. “Helsdim Rolfsen learned to read. Now he thinks there’s a secret war between snake kings and moon men.”

Grandin isn’t sure what to say to that. But Finn picks up his knife again, shaping the wood into curving lines. “It’s a gift, lowlander. You don’t owe me anything in return.”

* * *

It’s a week before he goes back to camp.

He means to do it earlier—every morning when he puts on the same slightly singed uniform, he means to—but then he gets down to the riverbank and there are other things on his mind. He’s… not himself. And he doesn’t think of the camp again until night has fallen and he’s lying in bed and itching for something, anything, to keep his thoughts occupied.

When he does make it back to camp, the pair on guard duty don’t see him, but he hears them.

“Grandin? I heard he was killed.”

“I swear I heard his voice.”

* * *

His days settle into a routine.

The river and the paths through the trees, misshapen rock statues and the call of brightly-colored birds, strange and familiar all at the same time, becoming more and more familiar every day.

Evenings sitting cross-legged on the floor before the augur, instructed to calm his thoughts and focus inward, like his very first lesson in drawing on mana, except this time when he reaches for that mana he touches a red hot nerve lighting up his mind.

Just as often, the augur sends him to others in the hold. (The god-touched need people around them, the augur says, to remind them who they are. And the Avvar aren’t his people but there’s a murmur of the augur’s anger in the back of his mind, anger and guilt curled up around each other and indistinguishable: an old apprentice, mistakes made, regrets. Bring the gods into the heart of the hold and they’re a joy and a gift and sometimes a weapon, but without those points of contact to keep them grounded they become a weapon rusting in the grass, cutting the first unwary person to stumble over them.) Arrken at the arena lines up a row of straw targets for him, careful and testing. Learning the balance of his magic all over again, convincing the fire to go where he wants it to go and nowhere else. Or he goes to find the skald in the main hall, drinking ale as weak as water, and he listens to her stories of the Lady of the Skies and spirits and the god-touched. Not abominations, she says, and calling a thing by its right name is important, she says, but that’s splitting hairs.

He doesn’t finish _The Dane Saga._ He gets as far as the story about the werewolf—magical transformations, wolf and man spending a year and a day learning what it’s like to live each other’s lives. It stops feeling like escapism. And though the book is slightly singed at the corner, Helsdim is still willing to trade him another book for it, a travelogue about a journey through Orlais. He sits up trying to read at night by the light of a flame cupped in his own hand, a training exercise, and the flame stays small and steady and harmless even without his conscious attention, the way it’s supposed to. But more often than not, he’s not really seeing the words on the page. Wishing he was down on the riverbank. His purpose is clear there.

In his dreams, he has Jace back again. Walks with him through the streets of Val Royeaux and says the things he should have said sooner. And he dreams of Hakkonites and a snap between his hands, feels it like something solid and wakes terrified that he’s truly broken something in his sleep. But it was just a dream. All of it was just dreams.

As an apprentice, he hadn’t understood why he couldn’t just ignore his magic. It was such a tiny trickle of mana, requiring patient coaxing to be turned to any purpose at all. But Senior Enchanter Ludmila used to say, “If you don’t control it, it will control you. Never allow yourself to forget that.”

The augur takes a different approach. Wrestling for control is… rude. Wrongheaded. The kind of thing that leads to true abominations, starving spirits grabbing for anything and everything they can get. Still, Grandin remembers Ludmila’s words.

The anger he’s felt since Jace’s death doesn’t go away, but it grows quieter for a time. It comes when he calls.

And other people’s anger calls to something inside him, bright flashing sparks of arguments that fade in an instant or Finn’s slow burning coals, and the song of it starts to sound like a prayer, like the Chant.

* * *

When the Inquisitor returns, he brings a gift for the hold with him. And _Finn, pause, Caldansen_ becomes _Finn_ , son of no one in particular.

This is a good thing, Finn says. Well worth celebrating. The forms have been observed, the gods have been satisfied, the soul of Caldan-who-is-not-his-father has been set to rights and the world is as it should be. The main hall is noisy and packed full tonight in Caldan’s honor, and even with all the noise, Grandin can still hear the quiet hum of Finn’s anger tugging at him. And calling a thing by its right name is important, the skald had said, with all her stories of legend-marks and god-touched not-abominations.

The ‘god-touched’ don’t easily get drunk, he’s learned. Which is probably for the best. But Finn doesn’t have that problem and takes full advantage of that tonight. And when he makes his way home, he leans more on Grandin than on his staff. Finn’s too tall, and the position is awkward, and his hand lands on Grandin’s waist, over the patch of ridged and alien skin that stretches beneath his ribs, and rests there.

The hut’s dark and empty and Grandin reaches for a bit of flame to light the way as he maneuvers Finn into bed, and Finn holds onto Grandin’s arm, reluctant to let go. Closes his eyes and leans against Grandin’s shoulder. “You smell like a forest fire,” Finn says.

“Sorry?”

“Mm… I don’t know. It’s not a bad thing.” Finn looks up at him then, dark-eyed. “Stay?”

And maybe Finn’s looking for a distraction, and maybe he is too, but Finn’s breath tastes of alcohol and frustration in equal measure, and something in him wants to respond to the way Finn’s anger sings in his head, hungry for it, for another little taste of the physical world, fire in his veins, and Grandin pulls back reluctantly.

“Good night, Finn.”

Finn mumbles something he can’t make out and then, “Wait. Just—don’t leave yet. Please.” Finn hesitates, picks up a book lying on the table next to his bed, beside an intricately carved figure of a bear. _The Dane Saga._ Slightly singed at the corner. And he holds it out to Grandin. “Go on then, lowlander. Let’s hear about your snakes and moon men.”

* * *

The Inquisitor doesn’t return for… months? Longer? He’s not sure. The spirit is familiar with seasons as a general concept but not the slow process of getting from one to the next, one day at a time, and it’s not that Grandin’s forgotten how counting time works but it seems unnecessary. Like a game he used to play. The bulk of the Inquisition’s forces pull out, sent west into the Arbor Wilds, and the Hakkonites try to reclaim lost territory along the north shore of the river and Grandin is waiting for them. The hole in the sky closes. And when the Inquisitor comes back and asks the Avvar to scale a fortress of ice, Grandin clears a path.

He loses himself on that field, and there’s a relief in that. Light and roaring in his ears and ice melting away, Hakkonites who turn toward him looking to honor their god with a good death, a crossbow bolt through what would have been his shoulder if he were mortal and solid, but he is god-touched and the bolt passes through the fire without harming him.

“Hold, Varric. …I think that one’s on our side.”

* * *

His owl pendant doesn’t burn up in that battle. He turns it over between his fingers, when Hakkon is dead and there’s dancing in the center of the hold where he’s used to watching the warriors train. The wooden owl’s gotten a bit singed around the edges over the past… however long he’s been here. (A year and a day, maybe, like Dane. Or the werewolf. He’s not sure which one he’d be in that story.) But it’s held together. Even when he forgot his own name for a little while with the Hakkonites in front of him, the fire went where he wanted it to go and nowhere else.

Finn’s slight limp doesn’t slow him down as he makes his way through the crowd to Grandin. He sits down beside him, passes him some water, and Grandin takes it gratefully, soothing his throat that’s been dry since the battle. Finn tucks himself close to his side against the cold night, easy and habitual, and watches the dancers spin, and then Finn says, “I think I have to earn a legend-mark.”

Grandin studies his profile, and Finn hesitates. “Or maybe it’s just that I want to. But… it feels like everything’s changing, doesn’t it? Like it’s a sign. With Hakkon. And Caldan.” He doesn’t stumble over his not-quite-father’s name this time. “You.”

“Me?”

Finn catches his eye, flushes abruptly. Shrugs. “Died and came back changed, right? Like the gods do. The same person but… I don’t know. The sky breaking and healing, people walking through the land of dreams and coming back again—it doesn’t take an augur to see the signs in all that. So the loss of a name… maybe the gods were telling me it’s time to find a new one.”

He turns that over in his head.

The Inquisitor—or maybe he should call him ‘First-Thaw’ now—had come to check in on him before leaving. Asked him if he could release the spirit now. And he’s not sure. Maybe he could. He’s had time to heal; maybe the spirit isn’t what’s keeping him alive anymore. Maybe someday he’ll try to let it go. But just because Hakkon is gone doesn’t mean the Hakkonites are, and those left will be praying louder than ever to speed their god’s rebirth.

Death and rebirth. That’s not a bad way of thinking about what’s happened to him. He thinks he likes that.

The spirit part of him is still so close to the surface after the battle, Grandin feels like if he tried to reach out again, let it give its blessing, this time it might work. But he can’t hear the old anger in Finn pulling at him anymore. The space where that guilt had been is quiet. So it’s not the spirit that reaches out, just Grandin; he presses a kiss to the corner of Finn's lips instead, and slings an arm around his hips, wondering what name he’ll find for himself.


End file.
